Fence Canyon

We pulled in with our 38' fifth wheel. We didn't want to stay right by the road so we decided to explore the higher up spots. We read a review that said it was too rough for RVs. I'm pretty adventurous so I figured we'd give it a try anyway. We dropped the fifth wheel and drove up to see the other spots. It was rough. Really rough. We've stayed at other spots that require driving down rough dirt roads, but this had huge ruts and big rocks. For us, it wasn't possible to get the RV up without breaking something inside because of the rough ride. Also, all of the spots had huge rocks that you would have to navigate around with your rig. We ended up staying down the road at "Mile 10 Dispersed." https://www.campendium.com/mile-10-dispersed

This is a winding road that goes up the mountain. on each switchback it has a campsite. Only the first three (one being at the bottom on the road by the entrance) I would take my TT to. The rest are so bumpy and like a 30%+ grade so I would be terrified to come DOWN the hill. I guess maybe people who do get the TT up here just go back through the road in the desert but honestly that looks REALLY long and I don't know where it goes. I came up here in just my 4runner unhitched to scout out other sites (currently camping up the road at the primitive campground, which is flat) and I was scared coming down this mountain in just the 4runner haha.
If you need a flat campground for a TT with plent of space just go up the street.

Like others have said, the road is very bumpy and pitted. I stopped at the first site I saw, so I didn't ha e to deal with it too much. I saw 2 pickups coming down the mountain and they were both going extremely slow.

Other than that, it was a good site, very close to Carlsbad Caverns and White's City. Pretty good views, although you see the fires from what I think are oil refineries? Pretty close to the highway which is good for location, but not for noise. Definitely a good spot to just stay for the night.

Great location for visiting the caverns. There can be no one or there can be several people camping along the road. This was our 2nd visit here and we decided to go up and over the hill. Lower 2 spots are bigger and before the road gets more difficult. Can be windy.
GPS: 32.349356, -106.612762 Google map link
Easy to locate: Yes. The road is not marked but Google maps identifies the turn correctly when approaching from Carlsbad.
Public Land: Yes
Cell: Verizon 2 bars, T-Mobile 2 bars, Google fi 2 bars
Crowded: not at all
Clean: mostly clean
Would we stay here again: Yes

Holy Washout..the road was very rocky which would have been more than manageable. It was the wash out I made it a less than ideal drive in. It was hazzardous with my 28 ft Winnebago but it was after dark and I was tired and desperate. It was either get to the top to turn around or back down in the dark...So i rolled the dice and got lucky. I pushed my rig and by shear force of will I made it to a spot half way up the third incline. Deff need 4WD or at least a high clearance heavy vehicle and some luck!

This BLM area is the way to go if you want to ditch the crowds at Whites City and/or Guadalupe Mountains National Park. We showed up around noon on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. It took us a minute to verify this was it, as there is no signage - we Google mapped "Fence Canyon" which didn't take us right there (Use the Coordinates at the top of this Fence Canyon page). There was only one other camper, and a few tents showed up overnight.

When you cross the cattle guard, there's a site right there to the left, then roughly every tenth of a mile all the way up. We stayed 1 mile in, which overlooked the road up and a few of the other campsites. You can still see and hear highway 62 below, but not enough to notice or keep you awake. On the 2nd day, we ventured back another mile (past the oil operation) to find incredible sites overlooking canyons with no highway views or noise. Next time, we'll go straight to those sites, because I think it would also shield from the wind a little better - our site was at the top of the hill and the wind picked up in the evenings. We didn't move to them because we were already set up out front.

THE ROAD: The road is quite rocky, but definitely manageable. My Outback pulled our teardrop to the top with no issues, just have to go slow and navigate the washouts. My wife met me here and also made it to the top in her Jetta! We each made several trips up and down throughout our 2 night stay, at about 5-10 mph. It's worth noting that it was dry the entire time, not sue how it would look after a heavy rain. Enjoy your stay!

This was our first BLM experience and boy did we choose a good one to earn our stripes. We stayed for two weeknights at the end of March. It’s very easy to find right off the highway. When you first pull in there’s room for maybe 3 or 4 occupants max..depends on the size of everyone’s rig and how much privacy you need. A somewhat treacherous road extends up the mountain from there with level-ish spots along the way. When we pulled in there were already a good handful of other people camping, so we had to drive a bit to find an open spot. We found an open plateau area about .5 miles up and thanked god to have made it. This was by far the bumpiest road we’ve encountered before or since. We’re driving a rwd 20ft Sprinter Van. We did it, and I wouldn’t say we had trouble doing it, but the shaking really rattled me. I saw lots of other vehicles make it up way farther than us - little sedans, small RVs bigger than us. I wouldn’t do it with any size trailer. It’s basically a one lane road and there’s almost no opportunity to turn around. But besides all that! It was nice. If you get a spot to yourself it’s far enough away from the others that you have privacy even though it’s all open desert. Even though it’s right off the side of the road, the elevation got us a good deal away from the noise. I could still hear cars but it wasn’t loud. Our Tmobile service was great here. So I wouldn’t stay again but it’s just because I’m a pansy.

This spot is only so-so, we stayed here our first night in the area but found the BLM spots further south to be better.

The road up is REALLY rocky! We have a low-clearance van and are prone to trying roads we probably shouldn’t - - this road was borderline and while it ended up being ‘fine’, it made us more nervous than usual.

The sites themselves are also just ‘fine’. There is little privacy as it’s just a continuous uphill, though the spots are mostly level. It’s very exposed to the elements and there is a gas pipeline running along the side. The views are mostly of oil fields and you can see the fires burning all night. Not my cup of tea, personally.

Verizon was at 2-3 bars, but internet data was a bit slow at times

Overall, it’s ‘fine’ and in a pinch would stay again, but we found there are far better free options a few miles south of the caverns.

As others have mentioned it is a rocky road in. We didn’t have any issues but decided not to risk is and stopped at the first set of spots. 6 vans could comfortably fit nose in or one to two larger RVs could fit sideways.

It is a barren landscape but nice to get a bit of elevation.

1 bar Verizon LTE without booster, 2 bars with booster. Despite the slow signal we had good speeds.